Giveaway Alert: What’s a Game-Changer in Your Social Strategy?

I run the socials for a nonprofit that helps children with disabilities unlock learning and find their place in the world. We’ve seen so much success lately in video content that focuses on a single moment vs telling a full story. So a video of a student using a mobility device to go to one location, or doing one classroom activity with a teacher, or interacting with one piece of technology, instead of a video showing them doing all of these things. The reach on these singular moments (even if the video is the same length as the combined footage) is much higher because it’s easier for a general audience to digest and only focus on one thing at a time. That also means we can turn one filming session into many different pieces of content!

Game changer in my social strategy has been user-generated video! Video reaches our non-followers and it makes it possible to generate more video content that resonates with our audience. 

Seems basic, but trying to get my management to understand that social needs to be based on content our followers want to see rather than what WE want them to see. Always analyzing engagement and trying to understand what hits or misses and why.

I oversee my company’s owned channels, managing everything from content strategy to audience engagement. Through our efforts, we’ve discovered that LinkedIn performs best as a platform for sharing people-focused stories, such as employee highlights, customer success stories, and community initiatives. It’s far more effective for building connections and engagement than using it to promote product information or sales-driven content.

On a whim, we started sharing our email newsletters as LinkedIn newsletters. It has been a huge success! In less than a week we had more subscribers on LinkedIn than we had gained via email in over a year. 

Aside from using Sprout Social to help maximize our social strategy 😉, I’m getting traction by applying trending music or social tactics to our business-oriented socials. It’s important to us to start reaching a younger audience and this approach moves the needle as far as reach. 

Hello! I am part of the social media team at Agilent Technologies 
 

One shift that’s really changed how I think about social media strategy is leaning into micro-moments instead of trying to tell the whole story at once.

We used to pack a lot into our posts… multiple messages, full event recaps, or long form type posts where users could get lost with technical jargon.  But we started experimenting with content that focuses in on just one moment such as a single quote from a speaker, one behind the scenes photo, etc

Turns out, those smaller pieces of information perform better. They’re easier to digest, more shareable, and they give us more post able content from the same event or asset.

When creating content or auditing a social account I look at what is the customer walking away with? Am I entertaining them, teaching them, what is their take away? People don’t want ads. Social media is an exchange. No one keeps coming back to an account if they aren’t getting something of value. So I always ask why would someone share, save, or interact with this content and how can I show my product without it being sold. 

I’ve seen so many people talking about how important authenticity is in content, and that ‘people’ want to see ‘people’ not brands (which also means not heavily branded content). So I’ve been leading an initiative to help get our experts more active in advocating for themselves, which can in-turn bring more awareness to the brand behind them (us). Those Visible Experts (s/o Hinge Marketing) have been moving mountains in regards to brand awareness just within one quarter. Never thought I’d be in charge of ‘influencers,’ but here I am.

In-line with that, I’ve been the main video content creator/editor and trying to keep points SUPER simple & under a minute within our industry has been TOUGH.. but also paid off a bit more. Though I’m battling the entertainment factor with higher-ups, which is what social media is based off of, I’ve had a lot more folks within our firm open to creating content this year.

Lastly, I agree with a person above about: why would our audience engage with or share this piece of content? That’s going to be what each of the social platforms wants to see from your profile, more people actively engaging with your content. So it’s a nagging reminder in the back of my head whenever I create content.

I manage a non-profit social pages and one big mindset change I’ve had is posting more content that relates to the community and creating video content has really changed my impression and engagement metrics. When our followers see their own story or a story that comes from the community they’re in I receive so much more organic engagement. 

Remembering to explain simple, foundational concepts again and again! Our organization focuses on complex scientific topics. When we share reminders of simple definitions and explanations (within posts or as separate content), we get much more engagement. It’s a reminder that we have a range of people with different levels of scientific interest and knowledge who follow us across different channels and we need to make sure we’re never getting exclusionary with jargon or unusual terms. 

I manage socials for a community college in California. In my time here, I discovered that it’s important to integrate student voices not only in the content, but in the content creation process. Oftentimes, students are not involved in the decision making process or content calendar mapping, so it is crucial to gather student input in order to share moments that accurately and authentically capture the student experience.

Game changer has been understanding where our audience is and being present and timely to create content around that. When people see themselves, or a friend, they are more likely to share, engage, like, etc.!

Hello! 

I manage social media for The College of Wooster and previosuly Tiffin University (both in Ohio).

Think like a documentarian, not a marketer. Instead of creating content from scratch, focus on capturing what’s already happening in and around your brand—then shaping it for your audience. This works because:

1. Authenticity resonates. Audiences are increasingly allergic to overly polished, try-hard content.

2. It lowers pressure. You're not constantly stuck trying to “come up with something.”

3. It keeps things in motion. You’re always telling a story, not just pushing products or promos.

This shift moves you from “What should we post today?” to “What’s already happening that’s worth sharing?”
It’s lighter, more real, and builds connection over time!

People want to be entertained or educated. The content we put out always has an underlying goal whether it’s educational or entertainment. We only get 3 sec of their time when scrolling so it’s try to make it as fun as we can.

YES! We are never our audiences. Great point. 

The game changer for me was sticking to the mindset that just because everyone is doing something that does not mean it works for your brand, your goals or aligned with your strategy--my overdramatic saying has been “If another brand had a PR crisis would we want to do that too?”

I’m happy and relieved at the power of photos in most of our channels over video consumption. Our Facebook engagement is phenomenal and in terms of our stories we have a better rate on photos than people watching videos which makes sense when people want to control the pace of the info they consume. Looking into more automation in terms of replies and sending links via Instagram instead of the “click the link” to see if we get more of a return on that.

100%. Say it louder for leadership 👏

Oh it’s a blanket! These prizes are so cool! Thanks to all who came to my webinar today, I really appreciated all the emojis 🥰💛✨

One thing that is a game-changer is showing snippets of a behind the scenes to our followers. For example, we would show the event set up scene a few hours before the event for a preview. In addition to that, highlighting diverse individuals and showcase their stories on our social media platform is a great way to engage with our followers. 

A social media ‘hack’ that has made all the difference for Riskonnect’s monthly follower growth metric on LinkedIn is the act of ‘being’ social on LinkedIn...i.e. making sure that our brand regularly comments on posts in the feed from other people and brands (including those outside of our own company/brand.)

Here’s a few ideas if you’d also like to try this:
-Comment on the posts of recognized customers who you’ve done testimonial videos with
-Comment on fellow posts from brands who identify as your partner brands and/or customer brands (for customer brands - stick to those who you already have public content identifying their connection with your brand with, to avoid any issues.)

I’d also suggest commenting on posts from thought leaders in your brand’s field and wishing folks well who land new roles within your target prospect personas.

All of the above activities will make a big impact in growing your brand’s following, especially in B2B, where we often in general get a lot less comments from actual customers/prospects (vs B2C which tends to get more naturally due to people wanting to weigh in on a recent experience with that B2C brand, etc.) 

Your comment on foundational comment just sparked SO many video ideas for me for our brand (Riskonnect, Inc.) thank you for this stellar piece of advice!!

We did the same in January 2025 and we’ve been amazed with the growth we’ve seen on our LinkedIn vs. email newsletter so far. Do you have a particular LinkedIn newsletter tip/trick from what you’ve learned so far, ​@haley.sadovsky? 


We’ve seen using the same visual to announce the latest newsletter work really well so it’s sort of ‘training’ the audience to see when to look out for the newsletter vs. our usual LinkedIn content. 

We also publish our LinkedIn newsletter 2 days before the email version goes out to sort of give those who view via LinkedIn an automatic advantage (early access to exclusive content.)

When I joined the social team the strategy was to post everyday. After being here for a while I took a step back and decided to focus on the quality of our posts rather than focusing on the quantity. It’s been a huge success! It also helps to have Sprout analytics to share with stakeholders!